Reaction on the Boston Marathon

There are supposed to be fireworks at the end of races like The Boston Marathon--not deadly explosions.

As my coworker read the breaking news to a group of us in the office, I put my head down and continued to write the treatment that I was working on. It wasn't that I didn't want to be informed--I wasn't ready to be sad.

Sadness, after tragedy, is often addictive. After Colorado; Newtown; Sandy;  and other large events that have resulted in death, I often find myself refreshing the Twitter stream relentlessly, clicking from news organization to news organization, and texting friends about their thoughts. All I want to do is turn away--but I can't. So when I finally tuned into what was going on in Boston, an hour after it occurred, my obsession with the story quickly manifested. I wanted answers. I wanted to know who, what, when, where, why, HOW. I wanted to know everything.

And rather than feel sadness, I suddenly found myself feeling angry. This wasn't an attack on our country, no it couldn't be. There are over 90 other countries represented in a race like The Boston Marathon. This was senseless--terrifying--and reckless.

As someone who has run a lot of races, my anger too stemmed from the fact that this could have been any race in any city.

On Sunday morning, I ran my first race in nearly 9 months on the JFK runway--a 5k. I even got a few friends to come run it with me--one who hadn't ran a race before. As we approached the 5k, I told her how excited I was that it was her first--that the community feeling of running a 5k, or any race, is what keeps me coming back.  People are supportive--People feel a sense of community.

And what I love most about running in races is that it's not a judgmental sport. People of all ages run--people of all run levels run--and people from all over the world run--without being judged. The spectators stand by--cheering, relentless--holding signs that make you laugh as you pass by, giving you high fives, motivating you until you cross the finish line. And unless it's the Olympics or unless you're a top runner battling it out for the top time, then no one is cheering against you either. It may not be a team sport but it brings on a team of people who want to see success. It brings people together--if even for a short bit of time. That's the fun of any sporting event--the community that is drawn in. To see that disrupted, to see our spectators hurt--our runners--our fellow Americans--and even those who travel from near and far to take part in a race that has such magnitude as the Boston Marathon gives me chills and is beyond disheartening.

As more and more information is released, my heart begins to sink more. As I see the photos of the carnage, I am reminded of photos I've seen of battle scenes.  People are without legs--three lives have been lost--and hundreds are battling what could be life threatening injuries in multiple hospitals across the city of Boston.

An 8 year old boy lost his life by simply watching a race--a race that perhaps he one day wanted to participate in, or that his family may have been participating in yesterday.


As I try to suppress my anger, I think of what I can do--what we can do in order to support Boston at a time like this.

The answer is to continue loving. To continue loving with all our hearts--showing our neighbor who may not always seem to love us back--so much love that they can't avoid showing love too.

There is too much good in this world to let the bad rot it out.

To all those who took the start line yesterday--and who stood by, relentlessly cheering them on to the finish, my heart--my thoughts--and my prayers are with you.

In the next few weeks, I will be looking toward a marathon to run in either October or November. I recently told a friend that I would never think of doing a marathon--that it wasn't in my cards. But it is in my cards, because I have the means to do it. There are people who lost the ability to run another marathon--or even their first after the explosives went off yesterday--so I want to run in memory of / out of respect for them them. If anyone has any suggestions or who would like to join me, please reach out. Even if it means walking all 26 miles. This race is the answer to the anger--to the hate--to the sadness. This race is for them.

Libs on the Reel

Be the Change

I'm going to open up this post the way a lot of bloggers have : I didn't know if I wanted to write about the tragedy that took place in Connecticut, just one week ago today. But I felt compelled to, because it's important to confront the things that we are running from most.

The truth is-I didn't want to think about this tragedy. I DON'T want to think about this tragedy. I DON'T want to envision the faces of those children as the unthinkable happened. In fact, for the first day, I avoided Twitter and even Facebook. Most of the news was wrong in the early hours that it didn't seem to matter: However, the worst part of it had still happened and was very real and it wasn't something I was ready to face...It's something I still have trouble facing each and every day as the AM Magazine gets shoved in my face with photos of funerals for 6 year olds. I can't even read the word Sandy Hook without shivers going down my spine. I remember being bombarded with news about Columbine as a child--and then again Virginia Tech as a college student, but the in-your faceness of all of this seems much more unavoidable.

I'm normally all about the news--in fact, when Hurricane Sandy rolled through, my reaction to the in your face blasts was quite the opposite--it all felt necessary--I wanted to break information to people as often and as consistently as I could. At friends homes, we sat around predicting how bad it would be--what to do if there was a power loss--and how long the trains would be out of service for. The difference is that Sandy was predicted. We were all awaiting it--so when it hit--we were ready. We couldn't prepare for what happened last Friday. Unlike Hurricane Sandy, my friends and I haven't made mention in conversation about the tragedy--and one time when i tried to bring it up, we all changed the subject right away.

I desperately wish I could turn back the clocks and sweep up all those children in my own arms and fly them to safety. I desperately wish the front page of the news this past week was fiscal cliff related, and not human tragedy related. I desperately wish this had never happened.

But there is harm in looking in the past, and wishing things had played out differently--in longing. It's time to heal and to protect ourselves from other situations that might rise similar to this.

As someone disconnected from the Sandy Hook community- the questions , as for most, are how can I help NOW and for the future . There are several answers: I can get educated about gun laws and reform in this country--and then I can educate others. I can also get educated about mental health and  how people can get help for it--and again, educate others. And then I can do the same thing every single one of us can do : I can look inside myself, and ask myself to be a good person, to keep my values and my morals, and to continue treating people with kindness and love--a message that takes only smiles and hugs to send.

 To see change, we need to be the change. We can't change what happened last Friday, but we do have the ability to change what could happen in the future.  So let's start.